![]() There isn't a single suit of the stuff in Haernhold where you get most of the game's best gear. It's like the designers made a big deal about making sure berserker-set gear was available around Torr Fion (and slightly beforehand), but after that? Nothing. All you ever get are pieces from the officer's set. Notably, berserker armor is widely-unavailable by the end of the game. Itemization is partly tied to combat, but I will say that there are some serious flaws before even taking that into account. Seems a bit off thematically-speaking (see below). It seems like you expected people to keep Melodie, so it would make sense if she could learn and use songs like that. The "travel songs" are okay, but they feel gimmicky. At least crafting is easy, and components are plentiful if you look for them. Sometimes you get leftover spellpoints from the last battle that you can use to cast Flesh Restore if you have a holy class, which you won't until later in the game. There's very little out-of-combat that you can do with your character abilities which is disappointing even without taking the original series into account (see below). At that point you may as well just let people quicksave, which admittedly you do kinda let people do now (didn't originally). ![]() I have no real problem with the save points, though every time you use a save point it reactivates every other save point, meaning you can plan out infinite saves and infinite healing by just ping-ponging between two saves. Autorun would have been nice (couldn't find a setting for that in-game might be that I'm blind). I don't expect Bard's Tale 4 to be open-world, but having a little more freedom to explore maps would have been nice. You don't have the option of going around combat encounters very often, even with Hide in Shadows, unless there's an alternate path (and there usually isn't). A few areas mask this fact, but for the most part, it feels pretty claustrophobic. Even in larger maps with lots of places to go (under Skara Brae), you're basically running on predetermined paths. ![]() You actually hear the music in the entire guild, and it fades out if you go downstairs which is a great touch. Rabbi playing in the Old AG is also pretty good (though the fully-instrumented versions of those songs in the endgame is much better, and he hardly ever plays the song about BT3). You did a great job with persistence of music in the puzzle area beyond Fiona's house, and arguably that is one of the best pieces of in-game music you've got. Overall, there's great music, but more care should be given to how you use it. There's music near Nain, but if you talk to anyone near her, it abruptly cuts out. Also the ambient positional music cuts out if you start a conversaion. no music! What? Torr Fion sort-of has this problem as well (the only spot where music makes any real sense is the quarry). You hear music coming from the tavern door, but if you go in the tavern. Walk into one part of town and you hear music, but some other part of town and you don't? The Wyre docks have this problem, Wyre has this problem twice (some parts of Wyre get music near the prayer circle which sort-of makes sense, maybe) with the bar being a standout problem. ![]() I understand why the women working in Skara Brae are a positional audio source for one particular song (the one they're singing), but the music in Fettercairn is really hit-or-miss. Sometimes you have legit background music (notably the scarier dungeons), while in other places you have music emitting from certain map positions as if it were ambient audio. The music itself is great, but the way it is used is iffy. Music is equal parts excellent and awful. For the most part, the world does feel "alive" until you notice that it isn't. There are a few other details missing but it's kinda nit-picky by that point. They just stay in the same place and the same businesses are open all the time. Also there's no day/night transition, and the NPCs don't really go anywhere or do anything. You see some livestock in distance shots (bison?) but that's about it. I say "pseudo" since there are no horses or mules anywhere. There are a few sticking points - why does everyone have the same accent? - but the detail and pseudo-realism is well-thought-out. There are two ways to take this game: as a sequel to Thief of Fate, and as a standalone title in the same game world. Bard's Tale 2 was the first game I ever "bought" for myself (my parents gave it to me, sort of). I've been sitting on it for a few months and finally got around to finishing it after being a bit underwhelmed by the early game.įor reference, I did play the original games back in the 1980s. I played the DC edition purchased on GoG.
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